He strode out of the room and inched his way across the outer room toward the front door, again narrowly missing the open trap door.

Once outside, he made his way along the side of the building in the direction that Morgan had taken. When he reached the corner, he could see the black bulk of the _s.p.a.ce Knight_ a hundred yards away. He ran toward the base of the ship and met Morgan coming toward him.

"Find anything, Sergeant?" he called.

"Nothing, sir," replied Morgan. "The ship is ready to blast off and her cargo holds are full. But that's all."

"Full of what?"

"I couldn't see, sir. The main hatch was locked and I could only see through the viewport. But it just looked like general cargo to me."

"Couldn't have been crystal?"

"It might have been, sir. It was pretty dark in the hold but it looked like a lot of boxes to me."

"You don't put crystal blocks in boxes," said Strong.

"Sometimes they do, sir. The more expensive grades are crated, so that the surfaces won't get scratched. Pieces that are going to be used for outer facings on a building, for instance."

"All right, Sergeant. But I found something back in that building that is going to prove very interesting."

"The cadets, sir?"

"No. An illegal use of oxygen!"

Quickly Strong explained his discovery, concluding, "Come on. We're going back in there for a closer inspection!"

"But we can't, sir," said Morgan.

"Why not?"

"We only have enough oxygen left in our tanks to get us back to the cleared area."

"Blast it!" growled Strong. "Aren't there any masks aboard the ship?"

"No, sir," replied Morgan.

"Very well, then. The only thing we can do is go back and bring out a searching party in force." Strong turned and walked rapidly away. "Come on, Sergeant, I think we're on the way to answering a lot of questions about the failure of the screens."

Almost running, the two s.p.a.cemen disappeared into the swirling mist of deadly gases.

No sooner were they out of sight than Tom Corbett and Astro, faces covered with oxygen masks, emerged from the warehouse and headed toward the ship, Miles and Brett close behind them with paralo-ray guns leveled at their backs.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER 16

Roger Manning opened his eyes, then closed them. He lay perfectly still and listened. The sound he heard was the unmistakable blasting roar of a s.p.a.ceship. But there was another sound, much closer. In fact, it was in the room with him.

He opened one eye to see Quent Miles moving about in the one-room, airtight s.p.a.ce hut which had been his jail for the last week. Miles was throwing clothes into a s.p.a.ce bag, keeping a wary eye on Roger, sprawled on the bunk. Hoisting the bag to his shoulder, Miles closed the face plate of his s.p.a.ce helmet, turned to the air lock, and stepped inside, slamming the portal behind him. From the bunk, Roger could hear the hissing of the change of pressure inside the lock from normal to the vacuum of s.p.a.ce outside.

The entire week had been a time of waiting and wondering. He couldn't understand Miles' actions in taking him prisoner the moment before blast-off from Earth, and then keeping him at the asteroid, seemingly giving up all chances of winning the race.

Roger waited until he was sure that the black-clad s.p.a.ceman had gone, then he sat up and worked desperately on the thin metal chain binding his wrists. He had been working on one of the links ever since his arrival at Miles' strange asteroid base, sc.r.a.ping it against the rough metal edge of one of the legs of his bunk. Two days before, he had succeeded in wearing it down to a point where he could snap it easily when the opportunity came for him to make a break. But so far the chance had not presented itself. He had been kept prisoner in the s.p.a.ce hut, and Miles had pushed his food in through a vent in the air lock. Now, however, with the sound of the s.p.a.ceship outside, the cadet decided it was time for action.

Working quickly, Roger snapped the link and tore off the chain, freeing his hands. He allowed himself the longed-for luxury of stretching just once, and then crossed to the small locker beside the air-lock door to take out a s.p.a.ce suit. He climbed into it hurriedly, secured the helmet, and began searching the small room for a weapon. In the bottom of a chest he found a rocketman's wrench. Grasping it tightly, he stepped into the air lock. Just before he turned on the oxygen in his s.p.a.ce suit, he listened again for the noise of the blasting ship. Then he grinned as he realized that it wasn't the noise of the ship he heard, but the vibration it created on the surface of the asteroid. Sound wouldn't travel through the vacuum of s.p.a.ce outside. Suddenly it stopped and Roger realized the tubes were being blasted in preparation for take-off. The young cadet closed the inner portal of the lock, adjusted the pressure, turned on the oxygen of his suit, and waited. In a moment the indicator showed the pressure to be equal to that outside in s.p.a.ce, and he opened the outer portal cautiously.

A section of the asteroid belt swam above him. Hundreds of small planetoids and various-sized pieces of s.p.a.ce junk drifted in the cold vacuum of s.p.a.ce overhead. Roger looked around. The asteroid he was on was so small and the horizon such a short distance away that the base of Miles' giant black ship was half-covered by the curvature of the planetoid.

Holding the wrench tightly in his hand, the blond-haired cadet circled around the s.p.a.ce hut cautiously, looking for Quent Miles, but the s.p.a.ceman was nowhere in sight. He had walked all the way around the hut and back to the air lock when he saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. It was Miles, returning to the s.p.a.ce hut. Moving quickly, Roger ducked behind a huge boulder and waited for Miles to come closer. It would be impossible to hit Miles with the heavy wrench. The s.p.a.ce helmet would ward off the blow. His only chance was to get aboard the ship while Miles was inside the hut. And he would have to move fast. When Miles discovered the hut was empty, he would come looking for the young cadet.

But to the cadet's great relief, Miles went past the hut and disappeared over the horizon of the asteroid in the opposite direction.

Slipping out from behind the boulder and utilizing the near lack of gravity, Roger ran in giant leaps toward the black s.p.a.ceship. His last jump brought him to the base of the ship where he quickly clambered up the ladder, opened the portal, and slipped into the air lock. In a matter of seconds he had built up the pressure in the lock to equal the pressure inside the ship. He opened the inner portal and raced up the ladder to the control deck. Throwing himself into the pilot's chair, he prepared to raise ship. Then he slumped in despair. The master switch had been removed. It was impossible for him to blast off!

He leaped out of the chair and scrambled up the ladder to the radar deck. He flipped on the audioceiver and nervously waited for the tubes to warm up. Nothing happened. Only then he remembered that the communications would not work without power from the generators and they could not be started without the master switch.

"Boy! He sure wasn't taking any chances of me getting away and leaving him here," Roger muttered to himself, as he turned back to the ladder and climbed down to the air lock. He stepped inside, and crossing to the small viewport, looked out over the dead landscape of the tiny world for a sign of Quent Miles. He saw the black-clad s.p.a.ceman returning toward the hut. Roger held his breath. If Miles went into the hut this time and found him missing, he would know that the cadet was aboard the ship.

"Manning," Roger said to himself, "if you ever needed luck, you need it now!"

Miles walked slowly, as if in no hurry, still heading for the s.p.a.ce hut.

But as Roger held his breath in fear, he pa.s.sed it again, without so much as pausing to look at it.

Roger grinned. "s.p.a.ceman, you are going to say your prayers every night after this," he murmured.

The cadet turned, and racing as fast as the c.u.mbersome s.p.a.ce suit would allow him, headed toward the power deck. Pa.s.sing the galley, he s.n.a.t.c.hed up several plastic packages of food.

Down on the power deck, Roger went directly to the lead baffling shields around the reactant chambers and carefully squeezed between them and the outer hull. It was going to be a rough ride on the power deck, jammed in behind the firing chambers, but at least he was hidden--and more important, _free_.

He listened for the clank of metal shoes on the ladder above him. When he heard them, followed closely by the slam of the air-lock portal, he grinned in satisfaction. Opening one of the plastic bags, he began to eat.

In a moment the ship came to life and the power deck became a raging torrent of noise and vibration. As Roger braced himself, he felt the ship quiver and then shake, as under heavy acceleration, it blasted off into s.p.a.ce.

Captain Strong and young Sergeant Morgan hailed a pa.s.sing jet truck loaded with s.p.a.ce Marines. "Get me to Commander Walters right away, Lieutenant!" said Strong to the young officer in charge. "This is an emergency."

"Yes, sir," acknowledged the young officer, and sent the truck roaring down the empty avenue toward the electronics building where Walters was still checking the reports on the screens.

"Is there anything new, sir?" asked the young officer. "Have the technicians been able to find out what's making the screens fail?"

"We're on the right track, Lieutenant," said Strong shortly. "Can't you get any more speed out of this thing?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: _It would be a rough ride, but at least he was hidden_]